


A Quiet Night

by Sparrowhawkshadow



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Amnesia, Awkward Valentines, Between the Scenes, Bittersweet, Bromance, Bromance to Romance, Consent Issues, Difficult Decisions, Dragon Age II Quest - Demands of the Qun, Dragon Age II Spoilers, Dragon Age Quest - Prime Suspect, Dragon Age Quest - The First Sacrifice, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Dubious Morality, Fantasy Setting Mental Health, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Health Issues Due to Drug Addiction, Hopeful Ending, Lovers But Not Like That, Lyrium, Lyrium Addiction, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Moral Dilemmas, Non-Sexual, Other, Partners to Lovers, Partnership, Rare Pairings, Templars, Templars (Dragon Age), The Champion (Dragon Age), Valentines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29607804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparrowhawkshadow/pseuds/Sparrowhawkshadow
Summary: ~ Ser Emeric has a partner. ~
Relationships: Ser Emeric (Dragon Age) & Original Male Characters (Dragon Age), Ser Emeric/Original Male Characters (Dragon Age)





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Edit March 1st, 2021: ~Canon Compliant if you want for chapter 1 (I don't), compliant with Just One and Burn if you squint. Just imagine the encounter in the alley during Prime Suspect happens after the Qunari attack.~
> 
> ~ There's just no way anyone would let an investigator work on a murder case alone. Particularly, paranoid templars wouldn't let an investigator work alone hunting potential bloodmages.  
> It's possible that Emeric doesn't have an assigned partner because he's sticking his nose in when his superiors have already told him to let it be. It's also possible that we just never saw them, because honestly: Would you want to be caught by the semi-official Fereldan private detective-slash-nuisance-slash definitely /not/ a mage illegally poking at leads when you've already been told not to?  
> But Emeric was soon to retire.~
> 
> ~ This is a late valentine but then I found it ... not too gritty, particularly, but still not quite fitting the mood. It's more of an 'always' and not a 'special day' kind of thing. There's also severe morality issues about consent as filling and sprinkles, just in case. ~
> 
> ~The title is inspired by the Dylan Thomas poem that's also quoted by Ashley in Mass Effect I: Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night.~

~

"I brought you something." He brushes in brusquely over the awkwardness of the greeting, waving the papers that crack new and crisp in his hands between the old leather of the gloves.

Emeric's boots always sound too loud on the clean grey stone tiles of the narrow corridors. The little square inner garden adjoining the cells was empty, only a few of the younger residents sitting on low stone benches. One had been reading a book, quietly, to himself. The other, opposite him in the courtyard, had been staring at the fountain, the grizzled woman's eyes blank and shot with veins, and looking at nothing. The grass is green there, the air relatively clear for Kirkwall, but then the Hightown chapel's gardens are higher up in the city than the Gallows. Less prone to moistness too, even as most of the residents aren't really old enough for arthritis yet. Nor will they ever be.

Raoul likes the garden, but he's forbidden from wearing a sword there. Emeric can understand the sisters who attend, he supposes, and there _was_ the incident with the kitchen service boy, yelling just a little too loud, too suddenly. And the grass is not supposed to get trampled. But even so. Raoul feels uncomfortable out in the open without a weapon. Last week Emeric almost yelled at the younger sister who suggested - all in good intentions - giving him a wooden sword. It feels demeaning he even has to say it. Raoul didn't protest, however.

He just sneaks out into the stableyard at night, but then, direct confrontation was always more Emeric's style.

Today, Raoul wasn't in the garden. Emeric pushes open the door to the sparse little room without ceremony, knowing his boots were loud and obnoxious. His partner knows his steps, even blind in the dark. A sunny afternoon is really not the time to be indoors, but the unbowed silhuette perches on the edge of the bed just below the little window leading out into the backyard. The sounds of horses and of wood being dragged around is in the air, the voices of the stablehands rough and loud. Tiny particles of dirt are dancing downwards inside a sunbeam. His partner's hair is not yet entirely grey, the remaining chestnut shiny in the light and flopping down into his eyes, bright with flecks of silver. It's been getting out of his habitual cut. Emeric's not sure whether he's supposed to say something, because he's not sure if Raoul has forgotten or if he's been letting it run wild deliberately. He doesn't really want to say anything.

Raoul's eyes slide up from where he...'s learning crotcheting? Knitting? Or just making a mess of a pile of string noodling in a heap about his lap, Emeric doesn't know. He's sure Raoul will tell him about it with shining eyes in a moment, or maybe he'll forget. Emeric hopes he won't forget.

Raoul's eyes are shining now, bright and happy and wide as he gets up, unceremoniously dumps the pile of wooly unknown on his bedside table and stands up. Unlike many of the other Templars, his spine and limbs are still straight. His muscles are strong too, and his reflexes swift. Emeric's made a point to keep him fighting fit even if he's not allowed in drills any longer, but Raoul would sooner fall on his own sword than hurt Emeric and they both know it. There's something you get to know about a person when you spend so many years and years and _decades_ fighting back to back, literally or metaphorically when Emeric trusted the clean but mercyless knife of his brother in arms in the shadows as he walked into ambush after ambush, head held high and pretending to be unafraid.

It was believable because he wasn't, and isn't, not really. If something takes him down it won't be because of Raoul's neglicence or lack of competence, and certainly not any failure of trust, only bad chance and poor choices by himself.

Emeric stops, giving him the choice, because sometimes Raoul can startle when he sees someone coming for him, fast, even if Emeric thinks he's being recognised for more than a novelty if the blowing pupils and loose hands are anything to go by. He's just not sure _who_ he's being recognised as, and what Raoul will do if that doesn't meet with what Emeric does next.

Raoul steps up, and stretches out both hands, palm up, and Emeric takes them. He presses the papers in between their palms, and Raoul lets go of that hand to run wondering fingers over the smooth parchment.

"You brought me something", he repeats, marvelling. Emeric's heart clenches in his chest, both amazed at the joy in his voice to be thought of and torn to shreds at the fact that the joy about something so simple is there so openly. Raoul was the assassin, the blade of mercy in the shadows when life wasn't an option and the only he could grants was a quick death to a soul already lost. It doesn't lend itself well to heart to hearts to be that. Raoul used to be more open with Emeric than any other, but not like this. Not until the blue took his mind.

"Emeric!" The Templar swallows. He's not sure whether Raoul only just remembered is name, because he came to him willingly enough, or whether he only just remembered _him_.

Raoul backs up again, leaving the paper sitting in Emeric's hand, slightly rumpled. He doesn't seem to notice. He sits down again, looking up at Emeric expectantly, his eyes hopeful.

"You finished the latest book", Emeric concludes and Raoul nods.

"It was a bit unbelievable", he says. "I'm glad the Pirate got away. But now I'm anxious." His eyes shift away, glancing to the window. "She left the Guard Captain in quite the situation. And the next one isn't until next month." He twists his fingers in the wool.

"I know", Emeric says. "But I've brought something that might take your mind of it." He winces. Bad turn of phrase. Raoul smiles slightly, as if aware of it and finding it just a bit amusing that Emeric bothers. "Something real."

Raoul's eyes light up, but he looks down the next moment, gathering up his knitting.

"I'd like that."

Emeric picks up the wooden chair sitting beside the bedstand to drag it over. The bedstand is simple - a neat white cloth, a cup, a pitcher of water, because lyrium makes you thirsty. It's heartening to see he's allowed ceramics. Then again, the steel needles make good weapons, or lockpicks, really. He's not going to say that in earshot of the sisters, though.

Not that it matters. Raoul could kill half the convent with his bare hands or some of those beautiful flowers in the gardens before anyone was any the wiser of it. Emeric's not going to say that to the sisters either.

"You're picking up knitting?" Emeric asks, wondering whether it was his own idea or something the sisters pushed on him. He's not _against_ it, specifically - it just seems a little - out of character. He swallows.

"It's good." Raoul takes up the wool again, soft strands wrapped around thick calouses on hands that used to wield a pair of knives as sharp as a razor. They woud have cut the bright soft wool in half without so much as a whisper.

"It helps me think." Raoul says, eyes fixed on the wool, and carefully dips the tip of a needle through the loop on his finger. Pull, hook, dip, repeat. "I can focus on what I want to think of." He smiles, softly, and doesn't look up. "That's good."

"It's no candleflame", Emeric says, quietly, almost to himself.

Now Raoul does look up, eyes lively and dancing. "No", he says, full of satisfaction. "It's not a bloody candleflame. Let's count our blessings, shall we?"

He doesn't look away, but his fingers are moving away along the strands.

Pull, Hook, Dip. Repeat.

Emeric sits down heavier than he meant to and on the bed instead of the chair, making himself jump, and almost jostling Raoul. The other just automatically moves his weight to adjust, and the movement keeps up.

Maybe not all changes are bad then.

"I like it", Emeric decides to say. It's not all true - he's on the fence at best - but it's the spirit of it that counts.

"I'm making you a shawl", Raoul says, and Emeric heart drops and soars at the same instant. "Because you always get a draft at your neck when you're on a stakeout near the harbour." The wool's a bright, friendly green, like nothing in Kirkwall is, the dye expensive and the strands fine and soft. It's the kind of cloth Emeric loves but could never wear, so bright it's not even feasible to wear in plain clothes. And the only thing Emeric does outside of his job is visit Raoul, still partways in his underarmour, because it's easier to remember the red and gold. It's what's familiar.

"I know it won't fit under the collar.", Raoul says, smiling brightly. Emeric blinks hard. "It's the only thing I can make that I won't forget the pattern off, and I know you hate inconsistencies in a pattern." Emeric blinks again. It's first from surprise, and then another reason entirely. It's no use either way, he has to turn away. Raoul doesn't say anything, but after a moment, there's just one soft pat to his knee, right above where the guard usually sits, and then the sound of needles resumes next to him, Raoul humming along quietly.

Pull, hook. Dip, repeat.

Emeric opens the papers. "Do you want me to read to you then?" he asks, and Raoul humms between his teeth, happily. "It's from the case I told you about.", he says. "Tethras wrote it down. It's just a first draft, but he says he always appreciates a dedicated fan backchecking the facts." Raoul humms again. "Do you want me to read it to you?"

Raoul nods, eyes on the strands claiming his fingers.

Emeric swallows to steady his voice. Then he starts reading. It's almost like being on a case together.

~

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

~~~

Emeric meets bright familiar eyes across the Lowtown market courtyard and watches as his old partner moves towards him, fluid like water through the gathered Templars in their heavy plate.

"I brought your knives", Emeric says when Raoul steps up to him, and it feels like they're in his chest but he can't _not_. It'll only kill Raoul quicker, and also kill him on the _inside_ which feels somehow even more horrible when he's already lost so much of himself. Emeric won't do that to him, he won't be that cruel.

Cullen throws him a glare from across the courtyard where he's organising the group that will double back and get to the Keep through the back alleys and small walkways and backyards between the noble estates. He's clearly too busy to do more than glare and clearly has bigger fish to fry than Emeric, disobedient, again. Cullen is also half a head shorter than most of the men and women under his command, and his mop of blond locks is soon swallowed by a wall of shoulders clad in silverite blocking him from view.

Emeric steps aside from his group of three, and Varen, his newly assigned second, gives him a weary sigh and waves him off. Varen's worked with Emeric before, and she's worked with Raoul. Emeric manages to feel a little guilty, at least until he turns towards his partner.

Raoul is in his old leathers and a light silverite mail that is clearly stolen. The armour's too new and too smooth but there's a layer that looks like fresh earth smeared all over and into the chinks of the mail rings to cover the shine that will be a void to clean, but there's also the Blade of Mercy engraved in the chestpiece in sharp new lines. He has a silverite dagger at his belt he must have hidden away somewhere, and a steel sword that's too long for him and clearly never belonged to a Templar. It wouldn't have stood up the burn of the flames their power can call up, but it would have been better protection on the way here than nothing. Emeric wonders whether he looted it off one of the victims of the Qunari. Emeric also wonders whether Raoul snuck out or simply told the sisters he would leave and there was nothing they could do about it and that was that.

He decides not to ask. It's doesn't matter now. He holds out the old weapons, two wickedly crooked blades of silverite filed down to a razor's edge just the night before.

"You knew I'd come" Raoul says, happily, and it's not a question.

Emeric says, "Of course". Raoul takes the knives. Their hands brush through a dual layer of silverite and leather, and Emeric is glad to feel Raouls are quite steady.

He, himself, is shaking, all over, and it takes him a moment to rip his eyes away from the familiar sight of two steady hands and two deadly blades, and up to Raouls face. He's looking at him kindly, out of far-to wide formerly brown eyes bleeding blue veins into the white, the iris itself flaked with cristalline refelctions like the colour of the sky. He's looking at him like Emeric is the one afflicted, like Raoul needs to be gentle in how he handles him. Then, his friend just smiles.

"I brought something for you too", Raoul says, and pulls out something soft and bright green. Emeric can only stare, and swallow hard. He nods as a thank you, because he can feel how the words stick in his throat, and if they come out something else will, too.

"It might get dirty or torn, but that doesn't matter", Raoul says, and Eron bends obidiently to let his partner wrap the bright green over his red-and-silver, right around his neck. Raoul tucks in the ends neatly, like an official kerchief. "For safekeeping", he says.

Knight-Captain Cullen will have something to say about that, but Cullen will kill him anyways for dragging Raoul into the fight. Hopefully, metaphorically.

If there's a tomorrow to live for, Emeric will just retire, if Cullen gives him enough time to actually write his resignation and doesn't just boot him out the Gallows for defying orders, again, and generally being a stupid sentimental fool. It's ... something that will happen tomorrow, if there still _is_ a tomorrow.

Raoul starts up the meandering steps of one of their trusted backways into Hightown, Emeric falls into step beside him, shield up and blade ready. Raoul fades into the shadows but Emeric can still feel him, like it's muscle memory, like it's his own arm that's holding the knife. He's no idea what makes it work, lyrium or just routine or some subtle tells his ears pick up but his mind won't tell him apart from _Raoul_ , _there_ , _save_. It's like knowing which side is down when you fall.

There's nothing now but fight. It's simple, it's good.

He pretends the eventual impact won't shatter him.

~

He watches the Qunari rush towards him, knows he can't take his eyes of the Saarebas who's reappeared and pulls up his power from his blood and bones and _pushes_ , hard, and knows even as the mage stumbles, shield gone, and Emeric forgoes his smite to turn and help he knows he won't be in time even so to stop the blade, but -

Raoul sidesteps easily, not just the first strike but the second too, lifts his left hand, and blasts the Qunari's face, the blue flame of the Templar power rearing out like it's being spat from the mouth of a dragon. It does little but the Qunari stumbles and rears back, strange eyes wide, and Raould dips, strikes and slips away even as the spear comes down. The Qunari stands, shaking, for a moment, and then his eyes goes out and his body crumples.

Raoul stands up behind him, unharmed, and even now turns to the Saarebas who's regaining his bearings. His eyes are dark and there's a snarl on his face like a wolf moving in for the kill, like he's seen it a hundred times before and knows the steps and there's only one outcome. Emeric's heart starts again.

Emeric knows how these stories go - all stories go in the end, the stories that Raoul likes. One last fight, one last chance.

A hero's last fight, and a bloody end.

Even so, he knows he can't keep him away - he should, by common sense and the ache churning in his breast, and by order of his commander, but he can't. Raoul is not someone to be kept caged, and he is fit to fight, if maybe not to follow orders. Emeric will be fine in his company. Raoul won't be, he can't keep him save.

It's no different than when they fought together for years and years, but Emeric knows that Raoul will no longer calculate a risk and recognise when it's his own life or Emeric's and make the choice to perserve himself. And while that wouldn't have been different before, it's no longer a decision Emeric can ask him to make.

But he can't stand to take that choice from him.

He's crying by the time they make it to the keep, push past the door, and Raoul drops enemy upon enemy with every swift flick of his blades, disappears in shadows and is right there when Emeric is struggling to keep control of the attackers, and just - he can't. But he can only protect his side and hope that when - if - the end comes it will come swift, and not as hhumiliating as the end on the battlefield usually comes. They both knows what it looks like when a body breaks.

Emeric's breathing evenly around the tears, mouth open to get enough air, trades a glance with Raoul, who doesn't react to the sight of Emeric a mess - it can happen in battle but it's naver happened to him, he mostly just screams. Raoul doesn't say anything, but there's more open sympathy than he ever showed before, and that just makes it worse.

Something more precious to loose, even if that isn't possible. He-

They push the door open and see -

The Fereldan Emeric helped or who helped Emeric. He's bloody and barely standing but with his head held high and stubborn and obvious spiritfire crackling around his free hand.In his other, he clutches the short end of a broken staff just below the long sharp blade. Emeric draws in a breath, but - a cheer's going up, a horrible noise, and it registers only then that the man is saying something to someone on the ground beneath him, and turns, triumphantly but almost sagging. Someone rushes forward to meet him, but Emeric can only look at his defeated foe.

The Qunari leader, dead on the purple carpet of the Viscount's throne room soaking with blood, and two strong hands empty.

There's - there's nothing to fight anymore.

~~

Emeric stands up straight and walks out of the Keep at a brisk clip, and sags against Raoul's shoulder as soon as the heavy metal doors slam shut behind them. Raoul looks down, and Emeric sighs, the adrenaline from the fight starting to drain as rapidly as water through a gate and leaving him exhausted.

"Twisted my bloody ankle", he growls. "Or sprained it, or something. Like in bloody Tethras' novels."

Raoul wheezes, and for a moment Emeric is alarmed he might be more injured than he let on, until he realises his partner is out of breath and also very much trying and failing not to laugh at him.

"I can't carry you down the stairs, you're in plate, we'll both fall", Raoul finally says, his voice still lilting.

"Fuck you too", Emeric murmurs, and grabs onto his shoulders to steady himself. That Qunari had a hell of a kick on him, and Emeric's still thanking his leg-guard and his leathers that his foot was even able to carry him through the rest of the fight, but it's starting to swell. He sits down against the foot of one of the ugly statues that are all over Hightown, looking slightly singed now, like the both of them too. He _really_ doesn't want to be anywhere near the mages right now, though. He somehow can't erase the sight of the Arishok laid out onto the stones. It's only topped by how little he wants Knight-Commander Meredith to see both of them right now. Emeric bites back a curse and grips the edge of statue's metal leg as Raoul undoes the buckles on Emeric's shin guard, and then they start limping.

They sneak in through the kitchen yard, and Emeric sits on a convenient stool and closes his eyes as Raoul borrows a wetstone and resharpens his dagger. Emeric's starting to feel a little dizzy, the emptiness in his bones singing to him. He feels turned inside out and weak, and its not just exhaustion. He used a lot of his powers in that fight. Raoul used them more.

Emeric opens his eyes and becomes aware that some time must have eluded him because Raoul's coming in from the kitchen garden and the noise of the door was what roused him, slumped against two giant crates of potates stacked one over the other and smelling of dry bitter earth. Raoul brings in sunshine and the smell of herbs, which makes sense because he's waving a bundle of them under Emeric's nose with a sly smile at the corner of his mouth.

"I don't need bloody smelling salts", Emeric grouches but takes the bristly twigs. The oil stings his nose and makes the queaziness in his stomach subside a little. It's hyssop, and rosemary, and the sunflower-yellow flowers of elecampane on brittle hairy stalks that bruise and leak an itching white sap over his too crushing grip. The flowers and hairy stinging leaves smell intensely of honey and bitterness. Emeric buries his face in them. They actually seem to help if not against the weariness in his bones, but against his awareness of it.

"You like my flowers", Raoul hums, and Emeric decides not to kick him if only because that would add injury to the actual injury. He's not sure where the insult is in this, but something stings nonetheless. Still, the smell is nice - a bit of sweetness but mostly sharp and peppery. He settles for looking up with a glare, and stops and breathes in sharply enough for the pollen to tickle his nose and make him sniffle. Raoul's face was ... far too serious. Emeric's not that injured, his leg - feels more stable actually. Emeric looks down. There's what looks like a filched straining cloth wrapped wetly around his ankle and his leg bare to the knee and the leather trousers cut lengthwise.

It doesn't look that bad, the swelling nearly gone. How long was he out?

Emeric looks up, confused, and sees Raoul crouching down to inspect the leg and shake his head, a strange twisted expression on his face. "It's not that bad. And I still had healing poultices on me. It should be fine by tomorrow." He looks down on the flowers, his eyes dark. "You will be fine."

Emeric blinks. "Then why ... ?" Raoul ... doesn't look good. His face is grey under the tan and the bristles of a new beard he didn't shave this morning, or that wasn't shaved because Emeric doubts the sisters allow him to hold a razor himself. Reality settles back in, from where they'd somehow seemed to slip seamlessly back into their old self. But Raoul's hands look steady. But for that Emeric might blame it on the drain of the lyrium from the fight, but he can /smell/ the lightning scent from Raoul's lips. He must have already taken a dose while Emeric was out cold, and likely a good thing when he was putting a knife next to Emeric's bare skin. He can smell the alluring perfume of the metal rising from Raoul's skin, and half raises a hand to his all-to-serious face to touch his cheek before remembering himself and letting it grasp his shoulder.

"Are _you_ alright?" He feels compelled to ask, because Raoul looks worrying if it isn't that, and it's also distracting himself nicely.

"Yes", Raoul says, then looks away, eyes shot with veins and glittering with too much fluid, and his lips twist. "No", he corrects himself, and stands, and turns away.

"You're in withdrawal", his partner says, and reaches for the kit - Emeric's kit - that is sitting on the kitchen board next to the rack of butcher's knives, and two leftover onions. The kitchen is eerily quiet. All the people must have fled when the Qunari attacked. Maybe they made it to the Chantry. Maybe they were cut down in the streets. Emeric remembers the Saarebas that Raoul struck down, and the footsoldier that he was sure would kill him. He swallows. It's not like they haven't done it before, and survived it. He feels dizzy himself, but Raoul shouldn't be.

He doesn't look alright.

He looks - too much like his old self, during the last few missions they had together. Emeric had thought that was a good thing. Now he's no longer used to it, maybe that is it?

"What is - " Emeric starts, unsure of himself and off-balance, but Raoul pulls the kit to himself with a sharp scrape of wood on wood.

" _Don't_ make me remember", he bites out, and lowers his head. "The flowers help against the sickness." He says, but there's nothing light in his tone now. "It's in their nature." He shuts his eyes and breathes in deeply, then open them again and lets his breath out. His voice shifts into a less strained register, just barely. "They help." He says, insistently.

Emeric nods. He breathes in himself, the scent sweet and bitter. It smeels like sun and bitter white sap and earth, and too much like the metal scent rising from Raoul's skin. "They do", he admits.

~~

"I got blood on your scarf", Emeric says. "I'm really sorry."

His mouth still tastes of metal. Not all of it is from the lyrium.

"That's fine", Raoul says, smiling through the bloody grime he _still_ hasn't wiped of his skin and putting his knives carefully on his bedstand. They lie, perfectly parallel, next to his knitting. It's something green, again. For some reason, Emeric's vision blurrs again, he can't tell what it'll be.

Emeric puts his bundle of crumpled flowers next to them. They will smell nice when they dry.

"The last foot or two isn't pretty." Raoul says, and Emeric turns to him. Raoul shrugs, buckling out of his stolen chestpiece. "I finished it last night in a hurry. The sisters prayed with us, for the Viscount's son. And the guild screamer in the market was doing something about unrest with the guards on the docks. It was obvious it would happen. Sooner or later."

Emeric can feel himself staring. Raoul smiles back at him, without guile, and starts on his leg armour. It comes off in a clang, and his partner sits on the chair Emeric usually uses, next to the nightstand. His clothes under the mail got bloody too, it's good he didn't sit on the bed.

Raoul tilts his head. There's blood and something else, something blackish and burnt, clinging to his skin just under his left ear. It's inches from his softly beating pulse. Emeric can't seem to make his throat work.

Raoul's eyes turn gentle. "It's alright", he says. "I've already started making you a new one? See?" He points towards the nightstand where two bloody knives sit side-by-side with a bundle of soft green and wilting yellow flowers. Emeric stares at his wide eyes stained with blue. "I know you don't like inconsistencies in a pattern."

  
  


And Emeric crumples.

Somehow, his hands end up smacking not into the floor but the soft grimy leather of Raoul's trousers. The edges of the powerful bone of his knees is harsh and solid under Emeric's clenching fingers. There's just the clean brown of the floor, the filthy brown of steel-toed boots still covered in grime from the battle. The soft greenish-grey of old leather under his fingers, worn smooth and glossy with time.

A hard grip grasps and twists his shirt at the shoulder and keeps him steady. It's made for that sort of violence, his red templar tunic. It doesn't break, the cloth doesn't rip and leave him bare. It twists around his torso and squeezes his lungs.

His heart beats rapidly in his chest.

He heaves a breath, and another. He's sunk down on the ground between Raoul's feet, the floor stark against Emeric's tired knees.

The harsh hand at his shoulder shifts, relents and releases the shirt. It just rests against the muscle now. Emeric grits his teeth against the urge to strike it away, or to want him to hold on harder.

His gut clenches and his stomach churns, like he's swallowed something spiky and hot and wants to be sick all over himself.

Raoul smells like metal and bitter sap, and like the stray pollen peppered all over him.

Emeric draws another breath. Releases the next.

Finally his voice comes up and out with it.

"I love you", Emeric breathes, "I'm sorry, I know it's too - I know we can't - ." He shouldn't be saying this. It's not fair to either of them- But - "Just - thought you have a right to know", he manages, and his voice scratches and breaks over the last word. He drops his head to Raoul's knee and holds onto it, starting to cry in great, heaving gasps.

A heavy hand settles on his head.

It's only when he's calmed down again, sobs fading into miserable little sniffles that he feels the careful fingers in his hair, carding gently backwards one after the other.

"Don't be dumb", Raoul says, quietly petting his hair. "we always have."

~~~

**Author's Note:**

> ~ In my mind there's the possibility that Raoul intervenes during /that/ part of Prime Suspect on his behalf. But it could also be read as canon. ~


End file.
